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Curried Eggs

A savory dish of sliced hard‑boiled eggs simmered in a buttery curry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter and sauté the onions until they begin to brown.

  2. Stir in the curry powder and mix well.

  3. Add the flour, stirring quickly to combine.

  4. Gradually add the stock or a tablespoon of dissolved beef in boiling water.

Finish and serve

  1. Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, then add the cream and sliced eggs.

  2. Heat through and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that carries the onion flavor and helps begin the browning.
Onions
Provide sweetness and savory body as they brown in the fat.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice aroma that defines the dish.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Hard-boiled eggs
Form the main substance of the dish, held in the creamy sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock gradually. Pouring the liquid in all at once against the flour can form lumps. Adding it slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, giving a smooth sauce before simmering.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, veal, cream, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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